Four nights at the Jazz Standard, NYC

In his New York Times review of Bill Frisell and Thomas Morgan’s Small Town, Giovanni Russonello called the former “a giant of improvised music, whose smoldering, tube–amplified guitar sound never loses its air of positivist contemplation.” As for bassist Morgan, some 30 years Frisell’s junior, “his warm and serious bass tone can assimilate itself into almost any band, becoming the music’s sturdy architecture without compromising his own blunt power.” In 2005, Bill Frisell’s Unspeakable won the GRAMMY Award in the category of Best Contemporary Jazz Album; recorded live in New York, Small Town is his first album for ECM Records as a leader/co–leader since Lookout For Hope in 1988. “It’s in the more naked, completely vulnerable environs of the duo—where the need for musical trust is, perhaps, at its most crucial—that the profound chemistry shared by these two thoroughly synchronized players becomes even clearer.” (All About Jazz)